By Barry Holbrook: The highly anticipated heavyweight clash between unbeaten Daniel Dubois and Joe Joyce is expected to be announced this Friday on February 7 at a news conference held by Queensberry Promotions Frank Warren in London.
The press conference is “to formally announce one of the most anticipated fights to be held in the UK in recent years,” which is expected to be the mouth-watering fight between unbeaten 2016 Olympic silver medalist Joyce (10-0, 9 KOs) and 22-year-old Dubois (14-0, 13 KOs) on April 18 at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Joyce vs. Dubois = biggest domestic heavyweight clash in ages
Although some boxing fans would disagree with the statement that the Joyce vs. Dubois is ‘One of the most anticipated fights to be held in the UK in recent years,” a lot would. There’s been a lot of good heavyweight fights in the UK over the years, but mostly it’s been British heavyweights fighting foreign fighters.
Fans have been waiting years for Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury to meet up in an all British bash, but that fight could be as much as a year away. In the meantime, Joyce vs. Dubois will give fans in the UK what they’re looking for in an exciting match between two homegrown fighters.
Dubois’ recent fight against Nathan Gorman (16-1, 11 KOs) drew a lot of interest from British boxing fans last year in July 2019, but it wasn’t a competitive enough fight on paper to create a huge amount of buzz. Gorman lacked the physique and the overall talent to give Dubois the type of fight fans wanted to see.
The 6’6″ Joyce has the size, power and the experience to give Dubois a real test. There will be a lot of fans that
Dubois potential future world champion
The 6’5″ Dubois is viewed as a future heavyweight world champion by many fans. WBC champion Deontay Wilder recently said that he sees big things from Dubois in the future. Like many fans, Wilder is making his predictions on Dubois’s future based on how he’s looked in his fights against the domestic level opposition that his promoter has put him in with.
In view of the fact that Dubois still hasn’t fought anyone to get excited about, we’ll need to wait and see how he does against the big 6’6″ Joyce on April 18. It stands to reason that if Dubois smashes Joyce to bits, he could be the real thing, and heading towards world honors in the not too distant future.
Thus far, Dubois hasn’t yet cut his teeth against high level opposition during his early three-year pro career. Compared to the more experienced 34-year-old Joyce, Dubois is still at the infancy stage of his career.
Joyce has looked great since turning pro three years ago. He’s beaten some solid fighters in his three-year career, and he’s got the potential as well to capture a world title. Joyce’s advanced age of 34 means he cannot afford to wait too long before he’s given the shot.